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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Liz’s sacking – Graham Marsden responds to a question at the River CC meeting.

A little more at last from one of the three Councillors that sacked Liz. Yesterday towards the end of the meeting at the Laing Hall, Highland Councillor Graham Marsden was questioned about Liz’s sacking.

‘Would you consider you have misjudged the mood of Nairn people with sacking of Provost Liz MacDonald? There were a number of letters in the Nairnshire none of them in support of the decision taken.’ Came the question from one of the River members, John Dolan.

Graham Marsden replied: ‘I think that for the reasons stated previously, what happened, happened and I’m not minded to revisit’... ‘I have, as I say, it’s very difficult to respond because I haven’t seen the letters. So the population of Nairn is over 10,000 people. How many letters are there?’

‘Half a dozen,’ was the response from John Dolan.

‘Right...’

‘Are you saying that that is a poor response?’ John Dolan again.

‘No I’m not suggesting that. No I don’t know how representative it is but the reality is...Facebook with the potential closing of the swimming pool where a thousand people click on and say they are opposed to that. It’s fair comment but it’s a very easy way of...it’s not really a plebiscite. It’s a measure of...they’re probably, what Liz had at the last, the previous election. She had 1,500 votes, so presumably a very significant proportion of those people would be very, very opposed to her not being Provost anymore but that’s out of ten and a half thousand people.’

There then followed some classic ‘lively’ River CC discussion with Bill Murdoch trying to close down the questioning thinking it not appropriate. Tommy Hogg in the chair for the absent Jeanne Tolmie asked Graham if he was happy to continue answering. Graham was happy to do so and continued.

‘I think I would like to see in the future, us look again and see whether it is appropriate in the 21st Century for Nairn Councillors just to decide who the Provost should be and indeed whether the Provost should be a Nairn councillor. But I think that is something for another time, it’s really something that I would like to see debated much more fully and maybe that in the future maybe the Community Councils would actually put forward a Community Councillor as Provost. Personally I would like to see that, I think that that would be much more appropriate but I’m not sure how the rules exist at the moment and whether that’s possible at the moment or whether the rules would have to be altered. So, and obviously there are other community councils, sorry councillors who may have different views on that.’

Update: We've been looking at the election results for 2007 and out of an electorate of 9,009 in Nairnshire 5,142 bothered to vote ( a quite good turn-out of 58.08%). As it was a PR system used the 8 candidates needed 1,029 first preferences to be elected in the first count. Liz was the only one to achieve this with 1,576 votes.You can see how many votes the others got and how they had to rely on 2nd, 3rd, preferences to get in etc, on this PDF document.

The arrogance of Mr Graham Marsden never ceases to amaze me at The River Council meeting he had the opportunity to give his side of the story when questionedon the the reasons for sacking Provost Liz Macdonald, another interesting point is what was the view of the members of The NRCC council towards his actions did they all agree with Fraser, Marsden,Park signed letter was thecorrect way to go about the removal of Liz as they had the opporunity to argue the case for or against with councillor Marsdenor did they all keep their mouths shut, its very dissapointing to think they said nothing at all.

River CC were like everyone else in town I guess, they had no idea it was coming.Last night I feel I detected considerable unease and even disgust from River CC members about the way Liz was sacked although they had no vote or motion on the matter. Maybe it was discussed up West too in the Community Centre with Rosemary and her cohorts?

Anyone interested in CC matters please look at the info in the sidebar concerning the campaign to get one Community Council and a strong voice for Nairn. Please get involved in getting a bit more democracy for Nairn. We lost out big time when the Nairn District Council vanished - it's time to get something similar back!

Graham Marsden always has been part of the administration, proof of that if it were needed is the way in which he acted in cahoots with Sandy Park and Laurie Fraser to sack Liz

He will never again be trusted by me nor I suspect a majority of Nainites, and just to rub it in he is also a Lib Dem

In putting his name to a letter to remove Liz from office he was also signing away his future in local politics, although judging from his reported performance at the River CC meeting that fact may not have sunk in as yet - it will, if not before then then at the next elections

Politicians have taken some well deserved stick in recent timesThe questionable coalition in Westminster, MP's expenses, and now the sacking of our ProvostWill we ever trust them again with our vote? There are now three councillors in Nairn who might as well resign their seats nowI'm surprised Mr Marsden had the gall to attend the River CC meetingPerhaps he thinks we will all forget the part he had in sacking our ProvostShameful behaviour from a man who likes to be such a community figurehead